System Supervillain, Chapter 122

Chapter 122 – Discussion

With the audience with the king done, I was suddenly free for a while. However, that didn’t mean I could just go off on my own, doing whatever. Well, I could, since no one would really be able to stop me if I chose to do that, but there wasn’t really anything I could do, constructively. If I started hunting Gel-nak within the shield, then word about it would almost certainly get back to the other side, and that Emperor would be more on guard. Couldn’t have that.

That was the downside of making a big splash. Yes, you got a reputation, and that reputation opened doors for you. However, it also restricted your movements at times. Too many villains failed because they only paid attention to what they wanted in the moment, and forgot the bigger picture. I had succeeded, so far, by ensuring that I didn’t get side-tracked by momentary distractions when I had a bigger project in the works.

As I stepped out, into the sunlight, I was confronted with a gathering of supers. My team was the center of attention at the moment, when it came to the capes currently at this staging area, it seemed. Well, that wasn’t entirely unexpected, since half my team used to be part of the Squadron Supreme, and they had friends, or at least acquaintances, around the world. I was surprised how FX appeared to be getting on with the Knave, though. Apparently, the trickster villain was a fan of some of her special effects work for different movies. Go figure.

Silver Cutlass, a UK villainess who used a magic sword and had a pirate theme to her outfit, smiled at him as he walked up. “Oh, Icy, we were just talking with your lovely little ‘pets’, here. Bloodmoon had some very interesting things to say. Something about a ritual on a mountaintop that got her new powers to replace the ones that she lost. Apparently, getting her revenge was almost the second-best thing she experienced that night.”

“Only almost?” I chuckled. “Well, I guess it was a bit of a tall order to try and go up against getting revenge on the people who ruined your life. Still, I like to think that I made a good showing of myself all the same.”

“Oh, yes, Master, you did!” Bloodmoon smiled over at me. “But I’ll admit getting to see to the old Emperor personally was the best present I could have ever gotten. Especially since the other bastards involved were already dead.”

“Brr,” shuddered Red Griffin, a bit theatrically. “Wasn’t one of the people killed for that ritual your kid?”

Bloodmoon’s gaze turned to Red Griffin, and her smile faded into a look that threatened horrible things if this conversation continued. “My unwanted son, by a rapist, who I was forced to carry because the Emperor wanted the bastard’s line to continue? Yes. I was quite happy to end that line and use the child’s blood to renew my power and give me a chance at revenge.”

“Anyways,” Silver Cutlass said, in an obvious move to try and change the topic. “Is it true that you literally fucked all the women on your team into submission with your magic cock?”

“OY!” Britannia roared, the UK heroine walking over to shut down the villainess’s line of questioning. “Let’s at least try to have some class around here, eh? Save that kind of talk for in private, not where any of the different civvies and military types might go listening in. Don’t want the Daily Mirror going and making all British supers to be slags! Bad enough with Killstreak doing her little performance last year!”

Killstreak laughed, and playfully punched Britannia on the shoulder. “Oh, come on! It was just a bit of fun. You never considered how many it would take to suck six meters of cock? Perfect distraction for those guards, and I didn’t even kill any of them. You should be giving me flowers for not causing a ton of collateral.”

Firedrake, another UK villain, shook his head. “I think she’s more upset that you went and put the whole thing on the telly. Right embarrassing, considering that a whole precinct of bobbies was involved, while your buddies went and robbed the evidence lockup.”

“Just using what I got. Better still, only ones who got in trouble for that bit were the officers involved. I didn’t threaten them or pay them or anything, that could be proved. Not a crime for a consenting adult to enjoy another consenting adult, and another, and another, and another. And there’s nothing saying I put that on the telly. Hell, nothing even saying I was connected to the blokes who went on a rummage through the lockup looking for treats. Far as the law’s concerned, I didn’t do a thing.”

I had to chuckle at that. “But, as I recall, there was some evidence that The Chemist contributed some of his ‘special vapors’ to the precinct’s heating system. The one with the aphrodisiac qualities.”

“Only reason the bastards weren’t discharged from the force,” Britannia muttered. “Drug screens showed they were all high as kites, but we couldn’t prove that Killstreak did it, or knew about it, so we couldn’t even charge her with sex crimes.”

“So,” Web Mistress said, sliding up to my side. “Did your conversation with the bigwigs go well?”

That got all eyes on me, naturally. Hero or villain, all the supers here wanted to know what went down, it seems. “Yeah, it went well enough. Managed to convince the King, and the general in charge, that there was a chance to get a big win against the Gel-nak, but we needed a few things to help make it happen.”

The Knave made a show of looking around. “I don’t see any signs of the troopers going and making ready for some kind of big assault, so either whatever’s happening doesn’t involve the army, or it isn’t immediately in the off. Which is it?”

The Green Knight sighed as he came up behind me. “If we make a move, it will be sometime tomorrow, or the day after. There are preparations that have to be made. When the first stage of those preparations are done, I’ll be taking a team down to Devonport, and help with ensuring a military convoy makes it here without any issues.”

“Aw, come now,” Silver Cutlass said. “Give us more than that. There’s been convoys going all about, and you haven’t been needing escorts for them. Especially since no one is going about ‘business’ while these aliens are crashing on our lawn.”

The Green Knight considered that for a moment, before just shaking his head. “I cannot make any of you keep quiet about this, but it would be best if there weren’t any leaks before it happens. It’ll cause a panic in the civilians, and may tip off the Gel-nak about the plan, making this all a lot bloodier than it needs to be. Think you all can keep mum about this, at least until everything’s too far gone for it to matter?”

“Oh, please. Like anyone would try and spoil the game before we get to have our fun,” the Knave grinned. “So, what kind of dastardly weapon is the King sending you to escort?” When the Green Knight glared at him, he just laughed. “Come on, it isn’t like we couldn’t figure it out. You wouldn’t be pulling an escort mission unless it was something important.”

The Green Knight sighed again, and said, “The King has ordered the crews at Devonport to dismantle one of the missiles on the HMS Vendetta, so that we can bring the payload here.”

Bluecloak coughed lightly. “Pardon me, but isn’t the Vendetta one of those nuclear submarines? The ones with the bloody nuclear missiles? What the bloody hell are we doing bringing nukes into this? We doing a New Delhi in London?”

The Green Knight looked my way. “Iceblade, you want to tell them?”

“Sure,” I nodded. “Thanks to Web Mistress’s work, we’ve found that the Gel-nak Emperor is personally visiting the base on the other side of the portal here in London. Which means we have an opportunity to throw the entire Empire into disarray.”

“My god,” Technician said. “You’re going to take a nuke through the portal, and blow it up in the Emperor’s face, aren’t you?”

“Half-credit for that one,” I chuckled. “But yes, a nuclear weapon is going to be brought here, because your king has the remarkably good sense to know that inviting me and mine into anywhere with live nuclear weapons is a terrible idea, even if ‘normal business’ is off the table, for now. And since even during normal business stealing nukes is one of those things that tends to get people’s drawers in knots, I thought it best to simply ask for one.”

“You did not,” the Knave said, disbelief written clearly across his face.

“He did,” the Green Knight nodded. “And put me in a spot where I had to tell his Majesty that, yes, Iceblade could be trusted when he said he would not allow the weapon to go off on Earth or in Earth orbit.”

Firedrake nodded. “That rep of yours for always keeping to your contracts worked out for you, eh?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t go through all the effort of crafting that reputation for nothing, you know. Just like the villains here are all have reputations for being the mostly ‘reasonable’ sort, while Jack the Ripper Two is nowhere to be seen. Even if the madman isn’t indulging himself, for the moment, no one trusts him anywhere around women, for obvious reasons.

“Anyways,” I continued. “The plan is for Devastation to pocket our nuke, and infiltrate the Gel-nak base on the other side of the portal. Then, we’ll hopefully get a nice, big distraction in the form of a general push on the shield from outside. While everyone’s eyes are on the portal, we swoop in, kill the emperor and any lackies with him, leave the nuke and some other surprises, and then escape back to Earth before it goes off, preferably turning off the portal before the blast, so there isn’t any backblast into London.”

Britannia frowned. “Why the nuke and the assassination? Couldn’t you do one, or the other? Why both?”

“And that’s why you’re a heroine, not a proper villain,” chuckled Silver Cutlass. “Yeah, the assassination would cause some chaos, but the assassination, followed by the nuke? That’s going to cause so much more. The lizards will not know what hit them. Any communications from the base are going to be ‘Oh shit, the Emperor’s been attacked’, and then BOOM! It will take so much longer for them to figure out what actually happened.”

I nodded in agreement. “And, since the Gel-nak are such a hierarchical society, with a bunch of castes and so on, that means that they’ll have a bunch of power struggles, as someone works to become the new emperor from his many children, and the factions behind them. Or from the military, trying to make one of their own the emperor, and so on. If it goes right, it should delay any response from the Empire as a whole for a couple years, at least.”

Technician nodded slowly. “A couple years that we’ll have to reverse engineer that fleet in space, and all the tech on it. As well as getting that fleet up and running, as an actual navy. And improving on anything we can. That gives us a chance to actually fight on their level.”

Firedrake looked at me. “Assuming, of course, that you’ll be parting with those ships?”

I chuckled. “Well, I may keep one or two. Properly upgraded, and with those stupid Uprising Controls ripped out, of course. But no, I was planning on letting the others go for very reasonable rates, for precisely the reason Technician just mentioned. And because we can’t be sure those walking suitcases won’t grow a brain and remove the Controls in the future, which would make any fight against them much more problematic without a fleet to match them.”